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HOUSE GOP BRACES FOR OUTSIDE CONSERVATIVE PUSHBACK TO CLIMATE PLAN: House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and his allies knew conservative pushback to their climate change plan was coming. Now it’s here.
They prepared for it by crafting a legislative package narrowly focused on carbon capture tax subsidies, planting trees, and funding clean energy innovation.
The first part of the package released Wednesday treads nowhere near carbon taxes or government mandates, but that didn’t stop conservative groups from claiming it did.
David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth’s PAC, said his group “will not endorse any candidate that supports the liberal environmental policies being pushed by Leader McCarthy and Senator [Mitt] Romney,” listing “environmental taxes, regulations, and subsidies” as no-nos.
McIntosh’s link to Romney is confusing. Romney is a senator who has flirted with endorsing a carbon tax, something no House Repubican who crafted their agenda is close to doing.
The pro-fossil fuel group American Energy Association called the House Republican pitch “a slippery slope to a slightly less intrusive Green New Deal.” Note, though, that the House GOP agenda is designed to prevent the demise of fossil fuels, while the Green New Deal seeks to kill coal, oil, and gas.
House Republicans felt compelled to respond to the attacks, and to confirm their opposition to carbon taxes.
“House Republicans stand united against carbon taxes and burdensome regulations,” said Rep. Garret Graves, top Republican of the Select Climate Committee, releasing a statement late Wednesday.
House Republican aides, meanwhile, sought to minimize the apparent division.
“There’s a false narrative that there’s a big split between conservatives and the House GOP,” a GOP aide told Josh. “We’re eager to work with them to continue an America First agenda based on free-market principles and to work with them to oppose policies that harm the U.S. economy — whether it’s the Green New Deal or carbon taxes.”
The take-away: It’s true the most strident conservative groups against government action on climate change have lost influence — especially with the emergence of other groups like ClearPath and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, both of which consulted on the House GOP climate plan.
But the decision by House Republicans to proactively respond to the attacks shows groups aligned with Club for Growth continue to hold sway, and are a big reason why you likely won’t be seeing the congressional GOP propose more aggressive proposals for dealing with climate change.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
BIG BANKS JOIN GOP GROUP GUNNING FOR CARBON TAX: The Republican-backed Climate Leadership Council is following the Aaliyah refrain of “if at first you don’t succeed…try again,” as it unveiled new support from business leaders Thursday in a bid to persuade the congressional GOP to drop its aversion to carbon taxes.
Global banking giants JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have joined a wide array of businesses in endorsing a carbon tax and dividend proposed by the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz.
Oil and gas giants BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil, along with automakers GM and Ford, have already donated money to the lobbying arm of the group, which advocates returning carbon tax revenue to taxpayers.
JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are not committing money to help lobby for the Climate Leadership Council’s carbon tax and dividend plan, as the concept is known.
But senior executive-level officials from both banks were among 18 business leaders who participated in a dinner dialogue Tuesday night with Democratic and Republican senators on the Climate Solutions Caucus to discuss a carbon tax. Representatives of BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Microsoft, GM, and Ford, among others, also attended the dinner, according to a list of participants obtained by Josh.
“It’s not ‘greenwashing,'” said Climate Leadership Council CEO Ted Halstead. “This is companies putting their name to a plan. All of these companies attending a dinner with senators is a sign of them putting their political muscle behind meaningful bipartisan climate progress.”
Read more of Josh’s report that posted this morning.
CORONAVIRUS LEADS TO FIRST DROP IN GLOBAL OIL DEMAND IN A DECADE: Global oil demand will fall by 435,000 barrels per day in the first three months of this year compared to the same period a year ago due to the coronavirus slowing China’s economic and travel activity.
This would represent the first quarterly drop of the world’s oil demand in more than a decade, according to projections Thursday from the International Energy Agency.
The IEA also cut its oil demand growth forecast for the year by 365,000 barrels per day to 825,000 barrels per day, which would be the lowest rate of growth since 2011.
These effects from the coronavirus are more significant than China’s SARS epidemic in 2003, IEA warned, because Beijing has emerged as a dominant economic player since then. China last year accounted for more than three-quarters of global oil demand growth, more than doubling its consumption since 2003.
POLICY COULD MAKE OR BREAK CLEAN TRANSPORT: The U.S. could veer off course from curbing greenhouse gas emissions without policies to put the transportation sector on a clear path to decarbonize, researchers say.
The 2010s had a good story to tell about greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector. Electricity emissions dropped by nearly a quarter between 2010 and 2019, while transportation emissions bumped up 5%, according to the 2020 Sustainable Energy Factbook, released Thursday by BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
That bright spot for clean energy in the power sector is expected to continue, as costs for natural gas and renewables continue to fall and companies dump more money into wind and solar power purchase agreements, said Ethan Zindler, head of Americas at BloombergNEF.
But without a strong federal policy signal, the transportation sector isn’t likely to find that same momentum. Transportation “is an area where policy really matters,” Zindler told Abby.
Read more on the Factbook in Abby’s story from this morning.
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE: This year’s January was the hottest on record since climate records began 141 years ago, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.
HOUSE SCIENCE CLEARS INDUSTRIAL GHG BILL: The committee approved the bipartisan bill, which targets greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial manufacturing sector, unanimously on Wednesday.
The legislation would create a new program within the Energy Department to research and develop technologies to slash emissions from industrial manufacturing. It would provide new funding, as well as coordinate existing research within the national labs and other programs under one hub.
Congressman Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat and co-sponsor, said the bill takes a huge step toward finding low-carbon options for a sector where currently there are few ways to address emissions. The bill, which has been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Manufacturing Association, already has a bipartisan Senate companion, led by Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
HOUSTON DEMOCRAT SLAMS AOC’S FRACKING BAN: Blocking fracking would hurt the economy and increase U.S. dependence on foreign energy, said Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher in a statement Wednesday.
Her statement signals energy-state Democrats, particularly those in tough re-election races, might start to distance themselves from the aggressive climate policies proposed by progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. Ocasio-Cortez introduced the bill Wednesday with Florida Congressman Darren Soto, and it’s a companion bill to Bernie Sanders’ fracking ban legislation. Fletcher is one of 44 House members, most of them freshmen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified as most vulnerable in 2020.
ENERGY NOMINATION HAPPENINGS: The Environmental Protection Agency finally has a new nominee for deputy administrator, and the White House is looking to promote internally.
President Trump on Wednesday tapped Doug Benevento to serve as the agency’s number 2 official. Benevento has served in the Trump EPA since 2017, starting as Region 8 administrator and moving to headquarters in March of last year, where he most recently has been associate deputy administrator. Benevento is also close with EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler (so close, in fact, that Wheeler was a groomsman in Benevento’s wedding, per E&E News).
In a long-expected move, the White House also nominated Mark Menezes Thursday to be deputy secretary of the Energy Department. Menezes already functionally works as the agency’s second top official behind Secretary Dan Brouillette, as the under secretary of energy overseeing policy and technology.
Earlier Wednesday, the White House renominated James Danly to be a Republican commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Danly, FERC’s general counsel, was already approved by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but the Senate did not vote on his nomination before the end of last year, requiring him to be renominated. The White House is looking to avoid a loss of quorum at FERC by getting Danly approved this year, since fellow Republican Commissioner Bernard McNamee is not seeking another term, potentially leaving the commission with only two members.
DEMOCRATS GRANT GRIJALVA SUBPOENA POWER: House Natural Resources Committee Democrats voted Wednesday to grant their chairman Raul Grijalva the power to issue subpoenas. The committee is one of a few in the House that does not automatically provide subpoena power to the chair.
Grijalva said he needs that authority because the Interior Department has failed to provide “complete or nearly complete” responses to most of Democrats’ request for information.
Committee Republicans opposed the move, saying it’s improper to change committee rules in the middle of a congressional session.
“This blanket authority is being given to coerce agencies and private individuals into meeting botched and overly broad requests,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, the top committee Republican.
The Rundown
The Atlantic An inside account of Trump’s fuel economy debacle
Bloomberg Big Oil warned Trump team China trade deal was unrealistic
New York Times Global financial giants swear off funding an especially dirty fuel
Wall Street Journal PG&E fire victims are set to become its biggest shareholders
Calendar
TUESDAY | FEB. 18
House and Senate are out
